Photo By Chris Faytok / The Star-LedgerGreg Schiano's Rutgers team lacked an offensive identity vs. Fresno State in the season-opener.

Well, on the bright side, at least they serve hard booze in those posh new luxury suites.

The hangover Rutgers fans are feeling today, however, has nothing to do with Jack Daniel's, no matter how much they consumed during or after this ugly 24-7 loss to Fresno State.

It has everything to do with Ray Rice. You figured the Scarlet Knights would struggle to replace the greatest player in school history when Rice bolted for the NFL after his junior season last spring.

Turns out, Rice took more than his 30-something carries and 200-plus yards a game with him to the Baltimore Ravens. He took the entire offensive identity of this program.

That was the most jarring thing about this loss. The Rutgers coaching staff had eight months to figure out what it wanted to be offensively without Rice to carry the load, and if you have evidence of what that is going to be after this performance, there's a headset and clipboard waiting for you in Piscataway.

Do they want to be a running team again? Do they want to throw the ball to their game-breaking receivers? Do they want to be razzle-dazzle? Do they want to be a ball-control team?

Or are they just going to call a lot of different plays and hope something eventually works?

That last option seemed to be Plan A for the 2008 season, and here's hoping there's a Plan B coming soon. If not, those $650 seats in the luxury suites might be landing on eBay in record numbers, because unless something changes, this season is going nowhere.

"We couldn't establish any rhythm in the passing game. We couldn't establish any rhythm in the running game," quarterback Mike Teel said. "We were all out of whack."

Teel led the way in out-of-whackness, completing 20 of 39 passes for 263 yards with two interceptions but leading the offense on just one sustained drive. He twice missed wide open receivers for potentially big plays -- once with Kenny Britt four steps behind the secondary on a second-quarter fly pattern, once with Tiquan Underwood isolated one-on-one with a linebacker deep in Fresno territory.

The fifth-year senior looked like a rattled rookie at times. Still, for many of the bad throws, there was an equally poor play call. Exhibit A: Offensive coordinator John McNulty called for a flea-flicker near the end of the first quarter when Rutgers had the ball first-and-10 at the Fresno 39. Teel threw into triple coverage in the end zone for his first interception.

That whopper paled in comparison to the fourth-down call in the first quarter near the goal line. Mason Robinson lost a yard on third down running into the line of scrimmage, but head coach Greg Schiano called for the exact same play on fourth down before he knew the result on third down.

The offense was sent on the field with instructions to run the ball twice, results be damned. Asked if the play call was a mistake, Schiano replied, "No. We just didn't do it the way we're capable of doing it." Sorry, but they could try it another 10 times and still not get into the end zone.

But this is more than nit-picking about specific plays. After four quarters, there's still no clear picture of what Rutgers wants to be offensively. This team has far too much talent to score just seven points, far too many playmakers to start seven drives in Fresno territory and fail to score a single point on any of them.

The choice should be easy: Britt is the best player on the field, a 6-5 receiver who will someday hear his name called on the first day of the NFL Draft. He turned at 2-yard catch into a 41-yard gain in the first quarter, making half the Fresno State defense miss. He had a 6-inch height advantage on whoever was covering him.

He had just six receptions for 89 yards. A good offense takes advantage of its best playmakers. Rice was that guy for the past three seasons. Britt is that player now. He needs more than six receptions. It might go against Schiano's philosophy to become a pass-first offense. But, while Kordell Young is a solid back who had a nice game, Ray Rice isn't walking through the tunnel again.

"I don't think we ever got into a flow -- coaches or players," Schiano said. "It felt like we were swimming upstream."

Rutgers heard the boos for the first time at the end of the third quarter when Young plunged into the line of scrimmage for no gain. There were no boos, however, when Teel's final desperation pass landed in the hands of Fresno defensive back Marvin Haynes.

Most of the fans had headed to the exits long before then -- including the ones with those expensive seats in the new luxury suites. Of course, by that point, the bar had stopped serving the hard stuff.